[025] The Most Popular
Female Television Program Host (09/30/2008) Who is the favorite of
this moment? No, it's not Rachel Maddolw. It is Liao Yingting of
TVBS (see Comment 20080928#023) who was accidentally
heard to say ""Nuts! How is it possible that Ah Bian would take that money
out ... Go eat shit!" (神經病，阿扁怎麼可能拿那錢出來…吃大便！)."
TVBS's switchboard was flooded with angry calls immediately afterwards, and the
station has apologized to Chen Shui-bian and the public. Nevertheless, she
has become immensely popular in Taiwan and China, because she said publicly what
was on their minds. Here are the wildly popular photographs (via KDnet):

[ESWN Comment: Why would she be so popular in mainland China?
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Imagine what would happen to a mainland broadcaster who
said something similar about their leader/ex-leader! This would have
been a career terminator. Therefore, the mainland Chinese broadcast
hosts tend to be more strait-laced and boring.]

"Godfather sat down on the bed. He did not say anything.
Suddenly he pushed me off the bed and put his body on top of me. He
began to take off my trousers. I started to yell, 'No! No!' My
fellow students just returned and they banged on the door to get godfather
to open the door. I yelled 'Save me!' But after a while, I could
not fight back any more ... and Godfather took me." Ah Yun recalled
how she was raped the first time by Lee Kwok-wah at the age of twelve.

When she was twelve, her father went to jail, her mother ran away and the
three children were left alone. The village mayor took Ah Yun to the
Children's Home of Kindheartedness and said: "You don't have to worry.
Everybody says that this uncle from Hong Kong is very kindhearted.
He'll let you study, eat and sleep."

The Children's Home of Kindheartedness was founded by 46-year-old Hong
Kong'er Lee Kwok-wah, and specializes in taking care of children from the
impoverished mountainous areas of Yunnan. There are 27 children with
similar background as Ah Yun, most of them being girls between 11 and 14
years old.

When she first got into the home, Lee Kwok Wah gave her a mobile phone
and a bank ATM card with 100 yuan in spending money. By contrast the
other children only got two yuan for breakfast money. "After I took
the phone and card, Godfather asked me to sleep with him. He promised
to give me clothes and money, whatever I wanted. I refused. He
kept putting his hand on my shoulder or touch my breasts and behind."

One day after school in 2006, Lee took Ah Yun and another child to the
hostel by the train station. Lee told the other child to go and buy
something. Then he raped Ah Yun. "I called my mother to tell her
that I didn't want to be at the children's home anymore. But mom told
me to stay on." An Yun said that she did not know how to tell her
mother about the rape. She knew that her father was in jail and her
mother made very little money in gathering tea leaves. So Ah Yun had
to put up with being the sex slave of Lee Kwok-wah for the next two years.

Lee Kwok-wah works as a social worker in Hong Kong. He visited the
Children's Home in Yunnan four times a year, spending more than two weeks
there each time. Ah Yuan said that she had to sleep with him while he
was there. Any time of day or night, Lee may make a sign to her to go
into the room. He even did it right in front of the other children.
Sixteen-year-old Ah San said: "We dared not look. We just keep our
eyes fixed on the television screen. We saw Godfather and Ah Yun
moving under the blanket, and Ah Yun making little cries. It was
frightening."

Finally things broken open when a Hong Kong donor went personally to
Yunnan. She handed out paper and pen and asked the children to write
about their daily lives. She interviewed the children separately in
detailed. Then she went to the media and disclosed what was happening.
But Lee Kwok-wah had fled back to Hong Kong.

The Next Weekly reporter went to ask Lee about the charges. He
said: "There are so many children there. They couldn't all be
complaining about me? They can say whatever they want over there!
I have no comments."

Asked if he would return to Yunnan to clarify things, he said: "I am not
able to make contact with them. Do you think that this is as simple as
making a telephone call?"

Actually, while he was saying that "it was not as easy as making a
telephone call," he was also calling the housekeeper Xiao Yang at the Yunnan
Children's Home to tell her to keep her mouth shut. But he did not
know that Xiao Yang was being interviewed by our reporter at that moment and
the reporter heard exactly what what Lee said: "When the police comes to ask
you, you say that you know nothing. Nobody believes what children say.
Only your word counts."

[ESWN Comment: This case is relevant to the nature of 'one country, two
systems.' The alleged crimes took place in mainland China and the
alleged perpetrator is a Hong Kong resident. The Hong Kong police have
arrested Lee Kwok-wah for "committing sexual offenses against children outside
of Hong Kong" (see
Apple Daily). There is no extradition agreement between Hong
Kong and mainland China. In Hong Kong, the maximum penalty is 10 years
in prison plus HKD 3 million in fines. In mainland China, the penalty
for raping children under 14 years of age is 10 years. If two or more
children were raped, the sentence begins with a minimum of ten years in
prison. More serious cases can result in a life sentence, or even the
death penalty. If the two systems are to converge in 2047, which one
should it be?]

At just before 8pm on September 2, the TVBS-N news channel was reporting
on news related to former president Chen Shui-bian. The host mentioned
that "Some Democratic Progressive Party bosses wanted most for Ah Bian to
take his NT$ 700 million overseas to start a brand new political party ..."
During the transition to the next news item, a female voice suddenly
emerged: "Nuts! How is it possible that Ah Bian would take that money
out ... Go eat shit!" (神經病，阿扁怎麼可能拿那錢出來…吃大便！)

The audience were stunned and their calls overwhelmed the channel.
Afterwards, the TVBS spokespeson said that the voice belonged to the hostess
Liao Yingting 廖盈婷 for the ensuing 8pm program.
She was testing her microphone at the time and her words were accidentally
aired. "We were changing hosts during which there was a brief test for
sound volume. At the time, she said something purely for testing and
it carries no meaning. What she said does not represent the views of
this channel."

The office of Chen Shui-bian demanded an apology within 24 hours, and
TVBS has complied. TVBS also indicated that there may be sanctions
over the mistake, but the public apology was their immediate priority.

While Liao Yingting was speaking her mind, she may also be speaking for many
other people.

With clenched fists, glimmering eyes and flying spittle, Chen Shui-bian
addressed his supporters in Kaohsiung with the usual Ah Bian flair.
The "God of War" Ah Bian from the Democratic Progressive Party elections
surfaced in the streets of Kaohsiung once again.

During his speeches and radio interviews in southern Taiwan, Ah Bian kept
emphasizing that the Kuomintang wanted to destroy "the president of the
people of Taiwan." He continued to manipulate the ideological issue of
Taiwan sovereignty in order to severe his connection to the many corruption
and money laundering cases.

Yesterday, Ah Bian pulled another trick by claiming that during his run
for the presidency, he had received a cheque endorsed in the back by
Kuomintang's Lian Chen to the amount of NT$100 million. He said, "Do I
dare to cash such a cheque in the midst of a presidential election?"
The cheque was found among the belongings that the special investigators
took away during the raid earlier this week.

But why did Ah Bian refuse to identify the specific presidential election
(2000 or 2004)? Why did he refuse to identify who wrote that check?
Lian Chen was a candidate in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, so
why would he give NT$100 million to his opponent? When the Democratic
Progressive Party senior officials heard about this yesterday, they found it
incredible: "Does Ah Bian know what he is saying?"

If Ah Bian had access to so many top secret documents, why didn't he have
them investigated during his eight years as president? He is using
these inside stories as his secret weapon to counter-attack from a desperate
situation. Instead, the world is learning that Ah Bian has been
keeping so many "unspeakable secrets" for so long.

Fu Jianfeng, an editor at one of China’s leading independent
publications, Southern Weekend, recently used a personal blog to describe
how his newsweekly discovered cases of sickened children in July — two
months before the scandal became public — but could not publish articles so
close to the Games.

“As a news editor, I was deeply concerned,” Mr. Fu wrote on Sept. 14. “I
had realized that this was a large public health disaster, but I was not
able to send reporters to do reporting.”

...

By midsummer, some Chinese journalists were learning that sick babies
were arriving at hospitals.

Mr. Fu, the editor at Southern Weekend, wrote in his blog that Sanlu
applied pressure to block reporting and used its political connections to
prevent some other newspapers from publishing articles about the problem.
But with only weeks before the Olympics’ opening ceremony, the timing made
media coverage nearly impossible. “We couldn’t do any investigation on an
issue like this, at that time, in order to be harmonious,” Mr. Fu wrote.

...

On July 24, a television station in Hunan Province reported that infants
who had consumed the same powdered formula were suffering kidney problems.
The station showed packages of Sanlu formula, but was careful not to name
the company.

Yet the problem remained largely concealed. “I felt very guilty and
frustrated then,” Mr. Fu wrote. “The only thing I could do was to call every
friend I knew to tell them not to feed their children with Sanlu milk
powder.”

The problem was finally exposed in September when the New Zealand
government, after discussions with Fonterra executives, contacted
authorities in Beijing. Beijing officials say they knew nothing about the
scandal until September, though a Fonterra company spokesman said the
company believed the central government knew in August.

Chinese leaders have since responded forcefully, even as they have
distanced themselves from responsibility for the scandal. The aggressive
initial tone of media coverage shifted this week, as state media outlets
like Xinhua, the country’s official news agency, emphasized how much the
public appreciated the government’s response. And censors were filtering the
Internet and removing certain postings, including the blog item by Mr. Fu.

Reached by telephone on Friday, Mr. Fu said he could not answer any
questions about his blog.

[ESWN Comment: While that original blog post no longer exists, an English-language
translation ("Let
Me Skin Sanlu Alive") was posted here on September 20,
2008. I have also saved a copy of the original Chinese-language blog
post. This goes to the core of the function of a Chinese-to-English
bridge blog -- to communicate what the Chinese are saying themselves and
before the western media picks it up incompletely.]

At the court trial yesterday, the famous "anti-tiger camp" representative
Hao Jingqsong took out a black umbrella on which was printed the words" Zhou
Zheng-long = Scapegoat." The dates "07.10.12" and "08.06.29" were also
printed. 07.10.12 was the date on which the Shaanxi provincial
Department of Forestry held the press conference to announce that the South
CHina tiger is alive and well. 08.06.29 was the date on which Zhou
Zhenglong was detained. According to Hao, Zhou is suffering on behalf
of the government officials behind the scene.

Hao Jingsong told the press that the Xunyang court turned him down twice
for a courtroom seat on the grounds that all seats have been taken. He
said that "the court lied." In addition, many media reporters did not
pass the qualification examination of the county publicity department and
were not admitted either.

Hao Jingsong told the reporters: "If Zhou Zhenglong does not disclose
signfiicant information at the trial," Hao would denounce the 13 cadres and
public servants involved in the case for dereliction of duty to the Supreme
Procuratorate. Hao said: "I'm prepared to petition the State
Department of Forestry to reveal all information. I hope that they
will disclose the information about who was involved in the South China
tiger investigation, the investigative process and results. The
taxpayers have a right to know where their money went!"

Internet users must certainly have received strange emails such as: "Hi,
I am XXX and I have established a personal page at YYY website. I
invite you to be my friend ..." This is the latest technique in
promoting websites that is preferred by certain social networking sites.
As such, it is called "viral marketing."

This type of forced selling is not as despicable as spyware/malware but
it is annoying enough. It is one thing to send emails, but this stuff
pops out as soon as you open your MSN. Even if there is no legal
recourse against this type of hooligan behavior that is completely
contemptuous of netizen rights, it is morally reprehensible. The
reason why these barbaric marketing methods are popular is that some
websites have no legal or moral restraints. Ethics is missing from
spam mail to "virus marketing."

What else can an unethical website do? That is hard to say.
Recently, there is the potential offered by Baidu and other websites that
were swept into "milk powder gate." When the milk powder scandal broke
open, a netizen published a document that recommended an increase in
cooperation with websites such as Baidu to delete negative information.
Baidu has denied that this occurred. But we can discern that certain
influential websites may be tempted by commercial interests. Based
upon commercial considerations, some companies must be tempted to spend
money to shut down netizen opinion. Meanwhile, the probability of an
unethical website colluding is 100%.

Actually, some websites have spotted the "business opportunities" in
Internet opinion. The recent issue of <Business Week> (Chinese
edition) has an article titled <How transnational companies deal with
Internet crises in China> which mentioned that some websites "can monitor
and suppress negative information or otherwise manufacture an opinion
environment for a monthly fee of USD 500 to USD 25,000." That is to
say, these websites search and classify negative information for clients (or
potential clients) for the clients to judge and respond. In a serious
incident, the websites can even manufacture or guide public opinion to
restore the client's image. Some public relations companies hire
students to makes posts to support/attack certain brands at a price of USD
0.15 per post. They are the mythical "boosters." Of course, it
is perhaps more appropriate to call them the "commercial 50 cent gang."

In discussing this with a friend, he thinks that this is a thoroughly
proper commercial activity. I disagree. To "manufacture" or
"guide" public opinion requires using fair and transparent means. You
cannot say that you can pose as a netizen in order to misinform in order to
save the image of your company. Besides, in the absence of any legal
or ethical restraint, a company can create negative information about a
client first and then pretend to "solve it." In the anonymous Internet
world, the likelihood of this happening is 100%. Therefore I have
always said that the Internet must deal with not just the pressure from
political ideology but also from the corrosion from financial ideology.

Some people may be perplexed about why the Internet is not clean.
The answer is simple: the Internet is the true representation of the real
world (I call it the mirror image of reality). When the off-Internet
business world is irregular, do you expect sunshine Internet dealings?
The market ethics on the Internet is at least comparable as in the real
world. Given factors such as anonymity, the Internet is even more
unscrupulous. The so-called "viral marketing" is just the top of the
iceberg.

Q. What is the situation with your children now?A. In order to take care of her three children, my daughter Chen Hsin-yu
hold part-time jobs at three clinics. For a daughter of an
ex-president and not a defendant in a criminal case, she is besieged every
day. She cannot stand the interference with her work and life every
day. When I was president, I cannot complain when the reporters want
to film her. But I have left office and it is still the same. I
feel sorry. She reflected and said: "Why don't these reporters spend
one-tenth of their time to go after the two daughters of Ma Ying-jeou in the
United States. Both of them are American citizens."
Before my daughter-in-law gave birth, everybody said that she better have
the baby delivered in Taiwan or else Ah Bian becomes the grandfather of an
American citizen. But the father of an American citizen can be the
president of Taiwan. These reporters ought to ask the daughter of Ma
Ying-jeou: "Why did you become an American citizen so that you cause the
people of Taiwan to lose face? You have dual citizenship! My
daughter goes out of control sometimes, but you should make the comparison!
I really want to ask these media to come at us parents if you can. Or
else, you should handle the daughters of the president with the same
standards.
When Chen Chih-chung got married, I told him that he can do anything
except get into politics. He is obedient, and he says he would study
law and never get involved in politics. After the chaos of the Red
Army in 2006, his mother fell into ill health and he returned to Taiwan to
take care of her. As a result, he was unable to register for school.
This year, he completed his registration and he was still unable to study.
When he returned to Taiwan, he was barred from exiting and therefore he
cannot further his studies. He did everything as his mother
instructed, but he still got swept into this. I don't know how long
this is going to go on. As a father, I feel very sad. But there
is nothing that I can do. I have to respect the law.

Q. When the photos of your grandchildren were published in a certain
weekly magazine, how did you feel?A. It is one thing for my daughter to be disturbed, but the
grandchildren should not be involved. They are 2 years old, 4 years
old and six years old respectively. The magazine published when they
go to school, the address of the schools and the photos of the children.
The photos were taken secretly. What if the children got disturbed or
kidnapped? The children are so young. When they see reporters,
they think that these are bad people. They don't want to step outside
their home. They will be misrepresented in the future. As media
bosses and reporters, how would you feel if these are your children?

Q. Do you have any regrets over choosing the path of politics over
these past 30 years?A. I have never rested my entire life, and not just these past 30 years.
I have never enjoyed myself. I would be very grateful if I can finally
live a normal life, playing with my grandchildren, working as a volunteer,
worshipping Buddha, being a vegetarian and spending more time with my wife
in order to repay her for my neglect over several decades. I don't
know how many years longer can she survive. Any extra day that she
lives is a bonus.
But it is impossible for me to live a normal life in the face of the
political persecution and oppression. Can you imagine how painful it
is for me? Do I regret when things turn out this way? Would I
choose the same path if I can do this all over again? From other
angle, what is my personal sacrifice compared to the historical
responsibility of Chen Shui-bian for Taiwan? If Taiwan requires that
my family make sacrifices in this manner, I am willing. My family will
not complain.
Eight years ago, I completed the transition of political power. 30% of
the people of Taiwan were willing to say "I am Taiwanese" in the past.
70% of the people of Taiwan are now willing to say so! I am very
happy. To certain people, I am selling out the nation. Mr. Ma
wants to head towards ultimate unification and turn Taiwan into a part of
China. I am the biggest rock that blocks the way and therefore
must be destroyed. That is why many people including myself and my
family are in such sad shape. This is because we represent the
sovereignty of Taiwan.

Q. Many of your followers are disavowing you. How do you feel?A. They have different ideas. I can understand that. Some
people see only what is before them, and not the full picture. I don't
blame anyone. In 2006, I was faced with the calls to recall the
president. Then came the state affairs fee case. Many people
within the Democratic Progressive Party break off with me and wanted me to
resign from the party. I was personally ready to cooperate, but the
facts showed that resignation was not the best idea. It is the same
thing today. Two years ago, I told the leaders of the Democratic
Progressive Party that I was not the only one involved in state affairs fee
problems. Rather, this was a political attack. They are
attacking us for selling out the nation, and I was the first one.
After me, there will be a second, a third, ... If I stood up, you
won't fall. The facts showed that if I backed off, what would have
happened?
It is the same thing today. Would you say that Taiwan will have
sunshine politics after the demise of Chen Shui-bian? You want to
handle the state affairs fee case all the way to the end. Why deal
only with Chen Shui-bian and not Ma YIng-jeou? Why deal only with the
green camp and not the blue camp? Especially with the state affair
fees, I know Lian Chan, Vincent Wu, Wu Po-hsiung, Hsu Shui-teh, Liu
Chao-shuan and others were also involved. But whatever happened to
their cases? For the same reason, was I the only one who ran for the
presidency? Were people honest in the other election campaigns?
Today, they come after me because this is selective and political.
When I think about this, I am embittered. But I accept it! As a
Taiwanese person, what am I afraid of?
In history, only two parties have caused the downfall of the Kuomintang: the
Communist Party and the Democratic Progressive Party. The first person
was Mao Zedong and the second was Chen Shui-bian. Today, Mao Zedong is
no more, and the Communist Party is seeking reconciliation with the
Kuomintang. The Kuomingtang people say: The Kuomingtang can shake
hands with the Communist Party but it can only fight the Democratic
Progressive Party (and, in particular, Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic
Progressive Party). I have nothing more to say.

Earlier, our newspaper reported that the Nandeng county Department of
Transportation director and middle-level cadres went a tourist trip on
public money. This drew a high degree of attention from the Hanzhong
city and the Nandeng county party disciplinary committees.

On the morning of September 26, the Hanzhong city party disciplinary
committee deputy secretary Liu Ximin told our reporter: "Based upon the
report, we conducted an investigation. We have basically learned what
happened about those Nandeng Department of Transportation cadres going out
on tour. The fact is that the director and 14 other middle-level
cadres went on a tourist trip in Shandong as organized by a certain Hanzhong
city travel agency." The cost was 2,800 RMB and the money came from
traffic fines collected by the department. These cadres will have to
repay the fees and, depending on the severity of their mistakes, be subject
to penalties such as warnings, severe warnings and revocation of party
membership.

At 3:30pm yesterday afternoon, the reporter once again went to the office
of the Nandeng county Department of Transportatoin. At an office on
the second floor, the reporter witnesses another scene: Someone was surfing
a pornographic website during work hours! The reporter noted that the
name plate for this individual was "Wei Yanjun" and his title was Office
Manager of the Department of Transportation. In a follow-up, a cadre
with the Nandeng county party committee told the reporter: "The computer at
the Department of Transportation had been infected by a virus. The
pornographic website 'popped' out automatically!"

When Premier Wen Jiabao spoke about the tainted milk powder affair, he
reminded corporations about carrying out their social responsibilities.
This reminded me of a chat with a business administration professor last
week. She also criticized business administration schools at Chinese
university for not paying attention to corporate social responsibility.
At the overseas business administration schools, they teach their students
about corporate social responsibility, including making it a compulsory
course, in order to produce managers with conscience.

But is that really the crucial point about the tainted milk powder
affair? I look over the course materials used in overseas corporate
social responsibility classes and I see discussions of hot topics such as
how to balance the highest return on investment for shareholders against the
interests of society, to ensure that environmental pollution does not occur
during the production process, to design and manufacture environment
friendly products, to protect labor rights and even to promote cultural
diversity. But will these courses teach the students not to add poison
into food? Of course not. This is such a simple concept that it
does not have to be taught, much less in a corporate social responsibility
context. This is simply the moral bottom line for human beings.
In like manner, would a sex education course for young people have to teach
the students not to rape someone to vent their lust?

When a country is such that the business administration schools have to
teach their students not to put poison into food or sex education courses
have to teach the students not to commit rape, then isn't this a terrifying
place to live in? Very unfortunately, we are precisely facing such a
crisis of the collapse of the moral bottom line today. The tainted
milk powder affair may be attributed to the ruthlessness of business people
or government-business collusion or the dereliction of duty by the
supervisory agencies and administrative departments. But at the root,
this is still a problem about fundamental morality.

Frankly speaking, no milk producer anywhere would have introduced a step
in which the amount of melamine is tested during its production process,
because it is impossible to imagine why anyone would put melamine into the
milk. If all the manufacturers in China have to conduct tests for
situations that normal people cannot imagine, then the costs of MADE IN
CHINA quality control would be the most expensive in the world.

The reforms started thirty years ago. It was only in the last 15
years that a large group of Chinese brands have risen up. How were
these big brands that seemed ready to challenge the global market built up?
Many of these businesses did not do so by working solidly on their product
quality to build up their brands gradually. Instead, they rely on the
imported business know-how and terminologies, and they parrot the talk about
new millennium marketing and brand image management. In other words,
they did it with public relations and advertising instead of the
fundamentals.

When Yili, Mengniu and other large milk-related product makers want to
rescue their companies, they employ the same old tricks that they used over
the past decade or so. Their crisis management did not really engage
in the essential spirit. What do I mean by spirit? It is very
simple. Their idea of crisis management is to emulate the overseas
experience by having the top manager resign in order to save the company.

I often read in news reports that certain corporate leaders spout off
various trendy and impressive business philosophies and brand concepts.
Later on, I read these same corporations got into trouble and some of the
corporate leaders were even sent to jail. They can talk all day, but
in the end they got tripped up on the most basic mistakes.

To talk to a bunch of people who would add harmful material in milk about
corporate social responsibility is just an illusory bubble as talking to a
bunch of people who have never even traveled in a car about how to choose
the best airplane seats. From this perspective, the tainted milk
powder affair has burst a certain bubble about the economic development in
China over the past 15 years. The truth has now come out: We have not
even learned how to stand yet, but already we want to fly.

By September 26, 2008, if you go back and look at the same comments, the
counts were 1,307 supporting and 107 opposing. Now the Premier gets more
than 90% support.

[014] Taiwan By The
Numbers (09/26/2008) (TVBS)
(846 persons age 20 or over interviewed on September 25, 2008)

Q1. Are you satisfied with the way that the Ma Ying-jeou
administration is handling the melamine-tainted milk-related products coming
from mainland China to Taiwan? 1%: Very satisfied
7%: Somewhat satisfied
31%: Somewhat dissatisfied
46%: Very dissatisfied
15%: No opinion

Q2. Do you have confidence that the Ma Ying-jeou will solve the tainted
mainland Chinese milk powder affair?31%: Confident
57%: No confidence
12%: No opinion

Q3. The Ministry of Health raised the melamine minimally acceptable
threshold up to 2.5 ppm. Do you approve? 2%: Very much approve
7%: Somewhat approve
22%: Somewhat disapprove
52%: Very much disapprove
17%: No opinion

Q4. Do you think that Ma Ying-jeou should form a new cabinet?54%: Yes
22%: No
24%: No opinion

Q5. Some people say that the Ma Ying-jeou administration is
useless. Do you agree?22%: Very much agree
18%: Somewhat agree
31%: Somewhat disagree
16%: Very much disagree
14%: No opinion

Q7. Why did you decide not to vote? (Base: No in Q4) 3%: Dissatisfied with some organization releasing exit poll data
before the election was done
21%: Dissatisfied with the culture of smearing and urgent appeals
19%: No registered as a voter
26%: Did not like any candidate
7%: Too hard to choose
11%: Didn't have time to vote
9%: Other
4%: No opinion

Q8. Which of the following methods is the most effective way of learning
about the candidates? 9%: Internet
8%: Promotional materials
13%: The candidate materials printed by the government
21%: Media reports
1%: Advertisements
16%: Debate forums
13%: Personal contact
8%: Other
11%: No opinion

Q9. Some websites were calling for voters to lie to exit pollsters.
Do you ...?12%: Support
52%: Oppose
36%: No opinion

Q10. Some organization released the exit poll results to the media
before the election was over. Do you ...?14%: Support
53%: Oppose
33%: No opinion

Q11. What do you think that newly elected Legislative Councilors should
forus on?33%: Improve people's livelihood
6%: Improve relationship with central government
16%: Promote social harmony
5%: Pay attention to education
7%: Promote development of political system
10%: Promote sustainable economic development
13%: Reduce rich-poor gap
5%: Other
5%: No opinion

Q12. How would you classify your political leaning?27%: Pan-democrat
28%: Middle-of-the-road
11%: Pro-establishment
34%: No opinion

The "warmth-seeking tour" of former president Chen Shui-bian came to
Taichung today, where there was an even bigger and more enthusiastic crowd
than in southern Taiwan. Chen Shui-bian was particularly ecstatic.
Although he had previously pleaded "If you love me, then don't hurt me by
wanting me to run for the president again," he cited Ma Ying-jeou's example
of announcing a run for the presidency on the day after a criminal
indictment and said that this was viable. So will he make his
announcement to run for the presidency on the day after his expected
indictment over the state secret fees case?

The crowd chanted: "Go, Ah Bian! Go, Ah Bian!"

Even though this was not an election rally, the crowd was going wild.
The venue was packed and cheers went on continuously. The
"warmth-seeking tour" of Chen Shui-bian reached a crescendo here in Taichung.

Chen Shui-bian: "I am not afraid of being oppressed by the Kuomintang.
I am willing to go to jail again on behalf of the 23 million Taiwanese
people. There have not been any political prisoners for a long time.
Ah Bian is willing to become the first political prison under the rule of
Mr. Ma's Kuomintang. I am willing to sacrifice myself in order to
build an independent Taiwan nation."

Chen Shui-bian: "On the night of his indictment for graft over the
special fees, Ma Ying-jeou announced that he was a candidate for the
presidency. He said that he would continue to run for the presidency
all the way. Right or not?" The crowd: "Right!" Chen
Shui-bian: "On the day when I am indicted for graft over the state secret
fees, should I announce that I will run against Mr. Ma for the 2012
presidency all the way?"

Chen Shui-bian got more and more excited as he said: "If the Democratic
Progressive Party is to be strong again, it has to be led by someone.
If no one can lead, Ah Bian is willing to lead. Is that okay?"

In Taichung today, Chen Shui-bian was interviewed on radio. Earlier
this morning, the special investigators had raided twenty-seven places
including Chen's office, his residence and the homes of his children and
assistants. Chen complained that the judiciary was unfair.

Concerning the question of whether his wife Wu Shu-jen should have to
show up for her court trial, he said: "Who is going to be responsible if she
should lapse into a vegetative state?" He said: "Mr. Ma Ying-jeou says
that the judiciary is independent. Do you believe it?"

In related news, the Presidential Office treasurer Chen Cheng-hui for
Chen Shui-bian was held under detention with no visiting rights today.
The judge deemed that she was involved in graft, forgery of document and
money laundering. The prosecutors had seized her computer and
recovered deleted files which showed that she transferred state secret fees
to the account of the Hong Kong bank accounts of the family members of Tsai
Mei-li (who is a classmate and good friend of Chen Shui-bian's wife Wu
Shu-jen). Even if Chen Cheng-hui was only carrying out the orders from
her boss, she is equally guilty. The reports were that Chen Cheng-hui
was emotionally distressed at the court hearing.

In this neighborhood, there are many business people who just dump their
garbage everywhere. This resulted in environmental pollution.

If you don't put out a public notice, people throw garbage everywhere.

Here is the initial public notice that was ineffective
because the penalty was too light.
"Garbage dumping is strictly prohibited; fine of 100 yuan."

So what does it take to have a civilized neighborhood? Here is the
public notice that was effective in curbing the garbage dumping.

Message: "If any turtle egg should dump garbage here, then either
you have no children or else you will never get rich.
Whosoever tears this notice out shall have no children."

See, no garbage anymore ...

What was the creative concept behind the notice? It taps into the
psychological mindset of business people. Why do they want to make
money? In order to get rich. Why is the purpose of getting rich?
In order that their children should live well. This ad says that you
won't have any children, and therefore it taps on the two key factors.

But is it a good thing to use uncivilized language to obtain a civilized
neighborhood? The neighborhood residents are uneasy about the
uncivilized language, but they don't feel that they have a better
alternative.

This issue of <Next Weekly> reports that the prosecutors found
ex-president Chen Shui-bian's daughter Chen Hsin-yu had wired money over the
figurehead accounts of the ex-president's wife Wu Shu-jen's classmate and
family for the purpose of insider stock trading. The modus operandi
was identical to that used by Chen Hsin-yu's husband Chao Chien-ming.
With this development, this means that the entire family (Chen and his wife;
his son and daughter-in-law; his daughter and son-in-law) are all in legal
trouble for graft, money laundering, tax evasion and insider trading.

The dumbest part of this whole story was that NT$34 million flowed from
Chen Hsin-yu's account to the various figurehead accounts which then routed
them to a single account. On the same day, Chen Shui-bian's former
Presidential Office secretary-general Chen Che-nan (now serving jail time)
had used several of his own figurehead accounts to route NT$34 million to
that very same account. The money in that account was then used to
purchase 4 million shares at NT$17 per share.

This information was previously known to investigators when Chen
Shui-bian was still president. The current investigators have
determined that the previous investigators deliberately declined to pursue
the case.

This morning, investigators from the prosecutor's office searched more
than twenty locations, including the homes of the family members of Chen
Shui-bian and their associates. Chen Hsin-yu showed up late for work.

She said: "Why don't they go after Ma Wei-chung's account? The
prosecutors never called her in for interrogation. Why? You tell
me why?"

Reporter: "Why did you into insider trading?"

Chen Hsin-yu: "I did not engage in insider trading. You are making
up these charges. You can smear my name and you can twist my
character. But you cannot fool God. God will watch demons like
you from Heaven, and He will know how to punish you."

Yesterday, more than two hundred senior citizens gathered in front of the
Jishou city government building to petition. During this period, an
official vehicle with license plate 0004 (which belongs to Xu Keqin, the
governor of the Tujia/Miao Autonomous Region) came through led by a police
escort car. A senior woman and a middle-aged woman rushed forward to
block the car. But the vehicle did not stop. The middle-aged
woman fell to the ground, but the senior woman held on to the car door and
was dragged for more than 200 meters. The vehicle stopped only because
there was a truck blocking the intersection ahead. Angry citizens
rushed forward to surround the car.

According to witnesses, the government official inside the car got out
and was condemned by the car. The chauffeur and the governor Xu Keqin
were both assaulted. Large numbers of public security officers and
armed policemen rushed to the scene. Xu Keqin left the scene quickly
under the protection of the armed police. The chauffeur was severely
injured. The crowd went ahead to overturn the vehicle.

More and more people showed up until several tens of thousands of people
were chanting: "Down with corrupt officials!" and "Give me my pension back!"
The armed policemen took no action. A government official asked the
crowd to calm down and promised an investigation. The crowd then
dispersed.

The commander-in-chief of the anti-Chen Shui-bian movement was Shih Ming-deh.
His former wife Chen Li-ju has just published her memoirs titled <The Pure
And Lovely Song of a Taiwanese Woman>. She revealed that Shih had
demanded an abortion when she got pregnant and that her visits to him in
jail were just occasions to pour out his lust. Forty-two letters from
Shih to her are also included.

Shih Ming-deh's other ex-wife Linda Gail Arrigo was also present at the
press conference for the book publication. She quoted Li Ao: "Ex-wives
are scary animals" and said: "When we two ex-wives are here, we have the
explosive power of an atomic bomb."

Concerning this attack from his ex-wife and daughter, Shih Ming-deh said
that when he was in jail, his ex-wife had a child with someone else.
Furthermore, she signed divorce papers before he got out of jail. But
now she is questioning him for deserting wife and daughter. Where is
the social justice? He also complained that his ex-wife and daughter
periodically threatened him in order to get money from him.

The book mentioned that Chen Li-ju first met Shih Ming-deh in July 1958
when she was only 14 years old. They made love the first time in
February the next year. Chen wrote that when Shih went to jail for the
Formosa incident, she went to visit him and found many other oppositional
female comrades clamoring to visit him while holding personal letters from
him. In November 1959, Chen informed that she was pregnant two months.
"I expected him to be very happy, but he angrily demanded that I get an
abortion."

Chen recalled: "Nori (=Shih Ming-deh) spent a lot of thought on sex.
For example, he signed his letters with 'Cane' which refers to his phallus.
He called my vagina 'Red grape' or 'Grape.'" In the letter, Shih
admitted that he fondled the female political officer six or seven times in
the nude during the time of his military service at Kinmen Island.
Shih also listed more than ten ways in which Chen should improve her sexual
techniques, including being on top of him and fellatio.

Chen also revealed when Shih went for a hospital for a medical check-up
in June 1974, she went to visit him. As soon as she stepped into the
room, Shih dragged her into the bathroom, stripped her and made love with
her on top of the toilet seat.

Shih Ming-deh's office issued a statement that Shih has never authorized
the publication of her personal letters. The statement asserted that
the ownership of the letters belongs to the recipient, but the publication
rights belong to Shih. However, a lawyer pointed out that a letter is
not a literary work. Instead, a letter is an expression. When
the letter lands in the hands of the recipient, the ownership belongs to
that person.

In Foshan, a post titled <Need a backup boy with/without girlfriend> was
made last month at the local Tiantian New Forum's dating section.
"This was just a minor post, but more and more people applied and debated
until it grew far bigger than we imagined," said a person at the forum.

The poster named 尕ωéπ claimed to be 19 years old and neither pretty nor
ugly. She lists four qualities that would disqualify any applicants:
- shorter than 170cm in body height
- older than 24 years
- pervert
- ugly to the point where she can't be seen in the street with
She does not mind if the applicant has a girlfriend or not. To show
her sincerity, she showed fourteen photos of herself.

The girl stated that she already has a boyfriend with whom she spends
almost all her time. She only wants a backup boyfriend for her spare
time.

The post was suspended on August 31. By that time, there were 22
pages of comments with almost 10,000 page views. Eventually, it rose
to the front page of the forum. According to the tally, there were
more than 200 applicants.This was as popular as any discussion of current
affairs.

In the comments, a netizen was skeptical: "You say that you don't mind me
having a girlfriend and this make me think that you are pulling a joke."
Another netizen wrote: "You want to two-time? Ha!!! I don't know
what to say.

There were plenty of negative comments. "I think that you only want
a backup boyfriend for an ATM." "Nobody should refuse happiness, but
two-timing is despicable!" The netizen named Green Sun called her a
"wanton" "slut." "If two-timing becomes a popular social trend, it
will destroy morality, increase divorce rates and decrease fidelity."
Green Sun also said that the website was polluting the dating forum by
letting this post exist. Another netizen said that "we have to teach
her lesson because she is being too blatant about this and we can do this by
using human flesh search to identify her and inform her boyfriend."

On the other side are her defenders. A netizen wrote that even cars
have spare tires, so people should have a backup in love. He said that
backup lover is just a new lifestyle which does not change the nature of
love. Rather, this only plugs in the flaws of love. But this
post was in the minority and was promptly attacked by others, who argue that
while one is free to have a backup lover, this was very selfish. The
debate then escalated to a conflict between the 80's and 90's generations.

Yesterday, the reporter contacted the girl. She said that although
many netiznes applied, she did not accept a backup lover and she does not
intend to look for one anymore. She was upset at the post that called
her a "slut." "It was going too far. Actually, I could have
wrote back to start a fight but there was no need." As for the storm,
she had asked the administrator to delete the post and she has not been back
to the forum for a while. On her QQ, her signature is "Go my own way
and people can say whatever they wish."

The "South China Tiger" affair has been going on for a long while, but
the public has not shown the customary fatigue. For this, we have to
thank the ability of the relevant government departments to continue to
create news for consumption, from their denial at first to the
long-anticipated court trial due soon. They were always able to
provide astonishing information that aroused the public. But who could
have imagined that the minimal right to defend oneself could even become a
topic for public debate. So we find ourselves debating heatedly
whether "there will be an open trial" and "where/when will it be held."

According to the law, there should not be an issue about an open court
trial. According to the Article 152 of the Criminal Prosecution Law,
there are only three situations without open court trials:- the case
pertains to state secrets, or personal privacy has to be preserved, or
under-aged minors have to be protected. But this writer has the uneasy
feeling that the court will transform an open court trial into a closed one
by invoking "only limited seats are available." It is alleged that
citizens would have to apply to the city government or party publicity
departments for seats on a first-come, first-serve basis.

We have heard "limited seats at court" more than once at certain cases
that draw a high degree of attention from the public. The Chinese
court system has undertaken large infrastructure construction for many
years. But somehow they become short in space whenever an important
trial comes on. I don't know if this courthouse is in shoddy shape,
but the photos on the Internet don't indicate so. Based upon the usual
process, "limited seats" mean that a certain number of unknown people "come
first and get the limited number of passes." Together with the already
scripted prosecutorial and defense statements, an "orderly" public trial is
ensured.

But at this South China tiger trial, the local court lacked even the
minimal experience of handling public affairs. They are actually
giving the right to assign seats to the city government/part publicity
departments. Pardon me for being ill-informed, but when the propaganda
department can control who gets to attend, is this a judicial event or a
propaganda activity? From the small details, we can spot the big
problem: The Shaanxi authorities have all along treated the trial of Zhou
Zhenglong as a propaganda activity and not a legal matter! This meant
that the propagandists had to control the proceedings (including the
appointment of Zhou's defense lawyers).

In the words of Liu Hongbo, "we have our own way of doing things."
But this way of doing things in fact hurts the course of justice! So
what is the public "South China tiger" trial going to impart to the
establishment of rule of law in China?

At a training class for Zhengzhou city cadres, the party disciplinary
committee secretary Wang Zhang said, "95% of corrupt officials have
mistresses." Based upon an analysis of more than 50 cases in Henan
province, he concluded that there are seven types of mistresses. Why
do women become mistresses to corrupt officials?
1. She is a kept mistress who gets money for satisfying the sexual demands
of the corrupt official
2. The two do it out of love
3. She is a hostage because the corrupt official has something on her
4. The two do it out of mutual interests
5. She is a 'fourth person' in a relationship (with the husband, the wife
and the child) but she has no desire to oust the wife/child because all she
wants is money and power
6. She does it out for the enjoyment that is paid for by the corrupt
official
7. She is a composite of two or more of the above

Wang Zhang explained that there are five types of behavior:
1. She is using her body to gain power
2. She is using her body to help the corrupt official
3. She is selling her body for money
4. She is using her body to force the official to be corrupt
5. She is using her body as bribe

Concerning the last type of behavior, Wang Zhang cited the case the
female director Liu Guangming of the Anshan city State Tax Department.
In order to seduce officials, she spent a total of 5 million yuan to go to
Hong Kong and Shanghai for cosmetic surgery. In particular, Liu spent
500,000 yuan to get the most beautiful arse.

This leads to much speculation about Liu Guangming. What does she
look like?

(Wenxue
City) The first photo below is used in the Xinhua report.
It is hard to reconcile the person in the photo with the textual description.
The other photo looks so different that it may be a mistake.

Name: Liu Guangming
Sex: Female
Place of origin: Anshan city, Liaoning province
Height: 1.72 meters
Age: More than 50 years old (although you would think that she is only 28 or
29 if you see her)
Career: Tax administrator; deputy director of city tax office; director of
city tax office; department head of city State Tax Department; director of
city State Tax Department.

As more products were found by the General Administration of Quality
Inspection to contain melamine, many of the well-known Chinese makers of
milk-related products are trapped in a confidence crisis. At the same
time, many mainstream Chinese websites are being questioned about the manner
by which they are handling the keywords related to the companies in trouble.

This reporter noted that while Baidu responded several times to public
doubts and said "The search results explain everything," the other
mainstream websites chose to maintain silence. These websites are now
facing a confidence crisis of their own.

The effect of the "Document showing Sanlu paid Baidu 3 million yuan"
continues to reverberate. In that document provided by a netizen,
Sanlu's public relations company recommended Sanlu paying 3 million yuan to
get Baidu to filter out all negative news about the kidney stones. It
also claimed that Yili and Mengniu paid 5 million yuan to buy off Baidu.
The document said that Sanlu has established stronger cooperation with
Sina.com and Sohu.com. "Except for the reports coming from the
authoritative national organizations, those two websites will not publish
any negative news about the Sanlu Group for the rest of the year."

Baidu denied that. The other websites have not said anything.
But netizens continue to use various means to seek out the truth and raise
doubts.

Among the doubts, the biggest one is about Baidu, the search engine with
the largest market share in China. Search engines are used by netizens
to find news and information. Ever since the Sanlu milk powder affair
broke open, some netizens think that the number of pages found on Baidu is
far less than its competitor Google.

The first report that named Sanlu was <Fourteen Gansu infants suspected
to have kidney disease from taking Sanlu milk powder>. Searching for
this report title, there were only several hundred results on Baidu but
several hundreds of thousands on Google. People thought that Baidu is
filtering out this title.

The netizen 'pang_ying" wrote that searching for "Sanlu kidney stone
babies" showed that Baidu had only 1/30-th the number of results as Google.
Similar comments have been made at many forums and constituted the evidence
against Baidu.

The Baidu public relations person was interviewed by Southern Metropolis
Daily recently, and explained that the difference is that Baidu used precise
matching while Google used fuzzy matching.

This person said that Baidu used precise matching on <Fourteen Gansu
infants suspected to have kidney disease from taking Sanlu milk powder>
whereas Google's results included many for <Fourteen Gansu infants have
kidney disease simultaneously possibly because from taking Sanlu milk
powder>. Although it was the same article, the former title was used
by fewer websites whereas the latter was used broadly by the news websites.

This person also pointed out that another reason why netizens were
getting few results was that they used the wrong keyword at first.
During the first few days, the netizens misspelled 'melamine' (三聚氰胺 instead
of 三聚氰胺). This reporter tried it himself and observed that this
phenomenon exists. On September 31, a KDnet user was recommending that
people search for 三聚氰胺 among other things. The reporter also noted
that this explanation appeared quickly on the Internet.

So Baidu said that they are using "exact matching." But other
netizens produced new evidence. On September 18, a netizen at DoNews
pointed out that the claim was just an effort by Baidu to hoodwink the
netzizens using so-called sophisticated theory of search engines.

This netizen pointed about that if "Wenchuan+earthquake" was searched,
Baidu yielded more results than Google. But when "Sanlu+melamine" was
searched, Baidu yielded fewer results than Google. "Why is it that
Baidu falls behind Google only when the Sanlu milk powder is posing a huge
risk against public health?"

But another netizen offered a different view. "What do you know
about precise matching? There are many methods and strategies in
matching. Can you come to a conclusion by making just a couple of
comparisons? Try searching for '踵塃.' Baidu has one result and
Google has almost 2,000 results. When different algorithms are used,
there can be vast differences. If you don't understand something, you
shouldn't babble. When you say something, you have to be responsible."

At the same time, another post titled <Exposing the standard rate for
Baidu to filter out negative information: 10,000 yuan per story> began to
circulate on the Internet. The post included two pieces of internal
email purported to be from Baidu. It also claimed a a senior manager
at Baidu quoted a price of 10,000 yuan to filter out a piece of negative
information.

As of this time, Baidu has not yet made a public response to this post.
The veracity of this post has not been confirmed. The reporter noted
that the DoNews post that questioned the Baidu claim about precise matching
has been removed.

Actually, Baidu was not an isolated case in the public confidence crisis
about Chinese websites over the Sanlu milk powder.

On September 17, the General Administration of Quality Inspection issued
the report <22 baby milk powder producing companies were found to have
melamine>. Very quickly, netizens found out that many mainstream
websites including Sina.com listed the company Yili as "Yi Li' with a space
in between. They pointed out that search engines treated "Yili" very
differently from "Yi Li." The former is a single keyword, while the
latter is the combination of two separate keywords. This meant that
the negative reports on "Yili" would be buried among the many pages that
contained "Yi" and "Li." This quickly became the topic of conversation
at many forums.

Very quickly, some of the websites eliminated the space in "Yi Li."
But curious netizens did not give up. On September 19, a netizen noted that
in the page source code of the reports on Yili, the code is actually "Yi<!>li"
with an extra invisible <!> inserted. Once again, netizens wondered if
this is proof of Yili public relations. In the same reports, Mengniu
and others did not have the extra <!>, which only appeared for Yili.
This showed that this was not an accident or mistake.

Faced with these doubts, many websites chose to stay silent. As of
now, there has been no response from websites such as Sina.com which are
being subjected to doubt.

... The first one to name "Sanlu" publicly was Shanghai-based reporter
Jian Guangzhou (see Why Did I Publish The Name Sanlu?), and
he is being regarded as a hero in China. Before him, many newspapers
reported the cases of infants having kidney stones, but they only referred
to "a certain company" without naming it. Even after the Sanlu affair
broke open and all of China was deploring the company, the local media in
Hebei province only cited official Xinhua reports and did not do any exposés
of their own.

Is Sanlu such an intimidating force? Actually,
Sanlu was not the only one. The state announced that 22 companies were
producing tainted milk power. On September 17, <Yantai Evening News>
published a list of only 20 names. When the readers made a comparison
between the two lists, they found that the two missing ones were Aomeiduo
and Leilei which were both located in Yantai city. At a time when
media information is available so widely and quickly on the Internet, it is
sheer stupidity to cover up in this manner. How much credibility can
such a newspaper have?

Many local newspapers follow the orders of local
government officials. At a time when people are dying, the local
government officials still want to serve as the umbrellas of local
protectionism. The bottom line is that this is about "power" and
"money." When a company makes money against its conscience, the local
government officials raise more tax revenues, increase the GDP, list more
accomplishments and earn promotions. These two forces become interest
groups. Behind the newspapers without credibility are the local
governments which have lost credibility and the sense of responsibility.

Conversely, the local government officials can wield
their powers against the misbehaving reporters with charges such as
disruption of public order, defamation, rumor mongering and so on.
Under such circumstances, very few reporters would risk their jobs to speak
out.

Another controversial incident is that the CCTV program
<Weekly Quality Report> positioned Sanlu as the top brand to promote the
"Made in China" label. This was a "soft commercial" dressed up as a
news story, and its communicative message was even more powerful than a
regular commercial, because the consumers will transfer the trust in the
media onto the product. Thus, the harm was greater when things went
wrong.

CCTV pleaded innocence and said that it was misled by
Sanlu. But why did CCTV spend so much effort to promote a brand?
In reality, Sanlu, Mengniu and Yili are all big advertising clients at CCTV.
Mengniu was said to have invested about 200 million yuan on CCTV this year.
The interest network behind the scene could not be clearer. The
so-called news has lost all its value and become a commodity that can be
purchased for a price. Can this kind of news be objective anymore?

The news media are called the conscience of society.
This conscience is being seduced and tested in many ways: ad expenditure;
free gifts; travel trips; "shut-up" money after incidents; various public
relations techniques to "hijack" the media. As for any media that
refused to go along, the companies use force to pressure them into
submission. After Sanlu got into trouble, it attempted to spend 3
million yuan to get Baidu to filter out unfavorable information.

Jian Guangzhou said that as his Sanlu report went into
print, he had visions of the Sanlu people calling him up the next day to
accuse him of being irresponsible and to sue him. He could not sleep
that night.

On the evening of September 21, 31-year-old Chen Daoning turned on his
computer and visited the forum that he administered. Chen is an
employer of a technology company in Taiyuan city. In his spare time,
he is an administrator of the Longcheng Hotline Space Forum under the
nickname "Which way?" He said: "I entered the forum and I saw that the
posts about the daughter of Shanxi coal mine boss was right in the front
with many comments. It was very busy as many of the regular visitors
kept making comments. Some of them said that the show-off girl has to
be found, others said that this was a fake video, still others said that
this was embarrassing for Shanxi and so on. I looked at the video
carefully and I found many suspicious points. People mentioned some of
those points. In an inspiration, I wrote a call for a human flesh
search to expose this girl." Chen called it the campaign to restore
Shanxi's good name.

But Chen recognized very clearly that such human flesh searches are often
mass entertainment. "When there is no name and just a few photos, the
likelihood of finding the person is very small."

But the Internet human flesh engine quickly yielded results. Based
upon the clues within the video, the Space Forum netizens kept looking for
the photos at various other forums. But the reality actually
disheartened Chen. The first photo of the villa turned out to be the
new American home of basketball star Yao Ming as first published in a
certain Guangzhou magazine. The photos of the cars were found to be
the showroom models of a certain car sales store. The brand-name
handbags were new products posted at a certain online store. "There
was no technical sophistication in the fakery. Without using half of
the power of the netizens, the fakery was destroyed." Chen posted a
'correction' post at the forum to prove the fakery by listing the origin of
each of the items.

Another netizen wrote: "Without even looking at these items, she must be
a fake. She claimed to be a person who was born in the 1990's and
moved to the United States three years ago. Therefore, she must be at
most 18 years old. Three years ago, she was at most 15 years ago.
At that age, the only way that she could do so is by having an American
citizen as parent. It takes at least 5 years for a new immigrant to
become naturalized as a citizen. So his parents must have moved to the
United States in 1998. At that time, coal mining was not big business
yet. So his dad could not even get a green card as an
immigrant-investor."

After taking apart the video, the human flesh searchers continued to
function and they found the first netizen who posted the video.

On September 6, the netizen "Huanweichen" was identified as the first one
to post the video. Through the clues provided by the netizens, this
reporter was able to contact here via QQ. She is a 22-year-old girl
who claims to be a student at a certain university in Beijing. She is
also the planner for a DV club. Concerning the many condemnations, she
said indifferently: "How much is real on the Internet? Isn't it more fun to
have real and fake stuff? If you believe it, then it is real!"
She said that she uploads videos almost weekly for video websites. So
far she had made almost 2,000 videos. Most of them are re-posts from
elsewhere but some of them are her own creations. She does so for fun
as well as the training experience in video production.

Last week, she uploaded another video titled <Overseas daughter shows off
her wealth>. These two videos about showing off wealth have more than
250,000 hits and almost 30,000 comments all at amazing pace. According
to the general manager of Space Forum, video sites are the fastest growing
platform. In early 2007, the sex video of a female actress enabled a
newly founded video website to grow ten times in volume. One month
later, the video website procured 12 million yuan of venture capital.
At the video websites, the most popular videos are about "sex," "violence"
and "showing off wealth." This is how the video websites subsist.

Another netizen said that the netizens also make money via videos.
Certain video websites have a profit-sharing plan with the netizens, who can
get one cent for every video viewing. [2.5 million viewings would mean
25,000 yuan!]

[001] Taiwan By The
Numbers (09/21/2008) (TVBS)
(1,048 persons age 20 or over interviewed on September 19, 2008)

Satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the job performance of President Ma
Ying-jeou:52%/17%: Announcement of cabinet
41%/37%: One month after inauguration
30%/49%: Two months after inauguration
32%/47%: Declassification of state secret fees information in the matter of
former president Chen Shui-bian
40%/41%: One hundred days after inauguration
28%/51%: Four months after inauguration

Satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the job performace of Premier Liu
Chao-shiuan:27%/53%: Four months after inauguration

Confidence/No Confidence in economic policies of Ma Ying-jeou's
administration41%/47%: Four months after inauguration